Record Breaking 2024 Nesting Season for Bermuda Petrel on Nonsuch Island

In collaboration with Nonsuch Expeditions, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is delighted to announce the successful conclusion of the 2024 nesting season for the Bermuda Petrel, also known as the Cahow.

 “Although we fell just short of the 2021 record of 78 fledged chicks, with 76 this year throughout the entire colony, we have set a new record on Nonsuch Island," said Jeremy Madeiros, DENR terrestrial conservation officer. "The translocation colonies have shown over a 25% increase, with 25 fledged chicks compared to last year's 19, making Nonsuch Island the most productive sub-colony for the species."

This success is particularly notable given that the first chick for the new Nonsuch Island population was produced in 2009, thanks to the Translocation Project. Previously, no Cahows had nested on Nonsuch Island or any of the other larger Bermuda islands since the 1620s due to the introduction of mammal predators such as rats, cats, dogs, and pigs and overhunting by early settlers.

This remarkable achievement highlights the dedicated conservation work over the past decades and fully confirms the success of the Translocation Project work that was carried out between 2004 and 2017 by Jeremy Madeiros. The original Cahow Recovery Project, one of the longest-running recovery programs for a critically endangered species, was initiated by Dr. David Wingate from 1962 to 2000 and is currently led by Mr. Madeiros from 2000 to 2024. It is also a signature part, and a keystone species in the overarching rewilding of Nonsuch Island during the same period.

At a recent talk at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI), Mr. Madeiros and Nonsuch Expeditions Founder J-P Rouja presented the latest statistics on the Cahow Recovery work. They also shared findings from collaborations with researchers from Canada, the U.S., and Italy. While most threats to the Cahow at its breeding grounds in Castle Harbour have been controlled, issues such as erosion, flooding from sea-level rise, and stronger hurricanes pose new challenges. However, Nonsuch Island remains less affected due to its larger size and higher elevation.

Persistent Organic Pesticides (POPs) detected in adult Cahows continue to be a concern, as they negatively affect breeding success. These compounds, including DDT, DDE, and Hexachlorobenzene, remain in the marine food web despite being banned over 20 years ago.

GPS tracking tags have also provided valuable data on the Cahow's range and feeding areas, revealing that they travel over 3,000 miles from Bermuda to waters near Ireland, northwest Spain, and as far north as Newfoundland and Iceland.

Deputy Premier and Minister The Hon. Walter Roban said: "The record-breaking numbers this year are incredibly encouraging. It's clear that our ongoing collaborations with Nonsuch Expeditions and local and international partners are making a real difference in the recovery of this iconic species."

Jean-Pierre Rouja, founder of Nonsuch Expeditions and CahowCam developer, added: "Our CahowCams and LiveStreams, launched over 13 years ago, continue to aid in the protection, recovery, and management of the species. With technical assistance from the Nature Conservancy, we've also installed a solar-powered, wirelessly meshed network of camera traps, with a custom AI trained to detect early signs of rodents and other threats."

Nonsuch Expeditions' ongoing work with the DENR has been recognized as one of the top conservation efforts globally with a special Chairman's award from the Mohamed bin Zayed Conservation Fund (MBZCF).

"The MBZCF award is a game-changer for our projects," said Rouja. "It brings international recognition and much-needed support, helping to enhance our monitoring and predator control capabilities and build new concrete burrows for the Bermuda Petrel."

In partnership with local NGO BioQuest, and following the completion of the Bermuda Petrel reference genome last year, to further aid recovery management of the species, the MBZCF grant will also support the first phase of a genomic population study.

Nonsuch Expeditions and DENR look forward to progressing the conservation of Bermuda's national bird and thank all partners, sponsors, and volunteers, especially those from Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the crowdsourced volunteers monitoring the CahowCam live streams, for their support.

Nonsuch Expeditions Wins Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund “Chairman’s Award”

At the wrap up of another record-breaking nesting season for the critically endangered, Bermuda Petrel, the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (MBZF) has awarded a special “Chairman’s Award” in support of the Nonsuch Expeditions ongoing conservation efforts with the Bermuda Governments Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda.

The Fund supports boots-on-the-ground, get-your-hands-dirty conservation of threatened species worldwide, with particular focus on lesser-known species that may not receive widespread conservation attention. It provides hundreds of smaller grants per year directly to those doing important fieldwork, of which a handful are selected each year for the prestigious “Chairman’s Award” as being representative of significant conservation efforts worldwide.

 “This particular project, supported by Dolphin Energy, was selected for the Chairman’s Award by the members of MBZ Fund Advisory Board on the basis of its ambitiously realistic conservation objectives applied to a critically threatened species, the Bermuda Petrel, and its associated nesting habitat.” Nicolas Heard, Acting Director General, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

 For the past 17 years the Nonsuch Expeditions have supported, participated in, and showcased the DENR’s conservation efforts on and around Nonsuch Island including work with the critically endangered, endemic Bermuda Petrel. Also known as the Cahow it was thought to be extinct for over 330 years until 17 pairs were discovered nesting on remote rocks in Castle Harbour in the 1950s. Thanks to a pioneering recovery program initiated by Dr. David Wingate, followed by a groundbreaking translocation project launched by his successor Jeremy Madeiros, they are as of this year back up to 165 pairs.

 JP Rouja, founder, and Cahow champion for the Nonsuch Expeditions, directly assists the Warden Jeremy Madeiros, and provides conservation technology and media support for the programs. Additionally, the team looks for conservation challenges that the island and its various species and programs are facing that can be solved by technology, collaborates with global partners to source and deploy solutions, and develops novel custom technologies when necessary.

“We are thankful for the International recognition this very special MBZF "Chairman's Award" brings to us for 17+ years supporting, participating in, and showcasing Jeremy Madeiros and the DENR's tremendous work, whilst building on David Wingate's ground breaking legacey” Jean-Pierre Rouja, Nonsuch Expeditions Founder.

 One of the signature projects is the decade+ long CahowCam project, which enables anyone from around the world to tune in to watch the nesting activities of Cahows unfold via the custom built ‘CahowCam’ – livestreaming video cameras set up in the underground burrows. Not only do the CahowCams open the world of the Cahow to Bermudians, children, and civil society – it also allows for increased scientific understanding of the birds from 24/7 observations of their nesting habits, and the crowd sourcing of observation and data collection.

 The MBZF Fund Chairman’s Award is accompanied by a $25,000 grant, supported by Dolphin Energy, which will assist the signature CahowCam project, and will be divvied up to boost the Nonsuch Expeditions other ongoing projects, but most importantly, it is hoped that the international recognition will attract further international support, as these efforts are currently underfunded. (Contributions can be made here).

Some of this ongoing work includes:

• ·Following on from producing the reference genome of the Cahow with local partner BioQuest (a Bermuda based NGO partner, leveraging genomics for conservation) in 2023, the grant will allow the team to initiate the first phase of a follow-on genomic population study of the Cahow, which will greatly enhance the management of the species.

• The ongoing maintenance, and expansion to other nesting islands of an AI powered, rodent detecting camera trap platform on Nonsuch Island that was installed in 2023 with technical support from the Nature Conservancy. The custom AI is being trained to identifying rodents which are a massive threat to nesting Cahows and Nonsuch biodiversity overall. These traps capture thousands of images on the island which are uploaded to the cloud where a custom AI will determine if rats have been detected, allowing for quick response to protect the nesting sites of the vulnerable birds.

• The funding will also support the installation of a new batch of artificial Cahow burrows. These are each made up of 600-800 lbs of concrete, which is traditionally mixed by hand then carried in buckets to the remote islands, which the grant will help accelerate through the use of a barge to produce a first batch.

• It will also help support the ongoing production of short-form videos shot weekly throughout the nesting season that are used for education and global public outreach.

*This grant is follow on to a similar grant made to our overseas collaborators in 2019 at the start of the ongoing Bermuda Petrel Biomonitoring Project, and in this instance is being made directly to the local Nonsuch Expeditions Team.

To watch the LiveStreams visit this link.

https://www.instagram.com/nonsuchexpeditions/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-nonsuch-expeditions/

A 60+ year rewilding Effort: The Nonsuch Island Ecological Restoration Project

For World Rewilding Day 2024, here is an overview of one of the earliest ecosystem-wide Ecological Restoration Projects, (now known as Rewilding) that was started in 1960 on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda, and continues to this day, from which the Nonsuch Expeditions project is based.

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Biodiversity Photography Project

Nonsuch Island is 16.5 acres in area, is well known as Bermuda's most important Nature Reserve and is where many of Bermuda's rarest and most critically endangered plant and animal species survive. Due to the ongoing massive impact of man on Bermuda through development, habitat destruction and introduced mammal predators, some of these species can only survive on offshore islands that are managed to control invasive species and human access. It is also home to several "Lazarus species", that is, species that were thought to be extinct, but were rediscovered barely surviving in unexpected locations, and are now the subject of recovery programs or captive breeding and re-introduction projects.

Nonsuch is also notable as one of the first examples on Earth of Ecological Restoration, or "Rewilding" as it is now known, where restoration and recovery work is being carried out not just for one or two species, but with the entire ecosystem that these species live in and need to survive in the wild. This also involves removal or control of all non-native or introduced plant and animal species that do not belong in that ecosystem but were accidently or deliberately introduced by man. It also involves ongoing management to ensure both survival of the re-introduced native and endemic species, and the continued control or eradication of additional invasive introduced species making their way out to the rewilded areas.

Bermuda Petrels as seen in CahowCam LiveStream

A keystone species the recovery of which is a signature part of this effort is the Cahow, or Bermuda petrel which was rediscovered in 1951 after being thought extinct since the 1620s, by Robert Cushman Murphy, Louis S. Mowbray and a teenage David Wingate. Eighteen pairs were eventually found breeding on four of the smaller Castle Harbour Islands, which led to these islands, including Nonsuch, gaining Nature Reserve status.

In 1962, after studying zoology at Cornell, Dr. David Wingate moved to Nonsuch Island as caretaker, where he conceived and initiated the "Living Museum" project, a monumental, and at the time ground-breaking ecological restoration or rewilding project that aimed to restore Nonsuch as an example of Bermuda's pre-colonial flora and faunal communities and habitats. He was appointed as Bermuda Government Conservation Officer in 1966, with the "Living Museum" project securing Government funding.

David Wingate, 1992 Nonsuch Tour

Between 1960 and year 2,000 when he retired,10,000+ seedlings of Native and Endemic plants were planted on Nonsuch by Dr. Wingate, on the initially virtually barren island, which was followed by another 6,000+ by Jeremy Madeiros once he took over as Warden in 2000 (see below).

Between 1967 and 1978, 16,000 green turtle hatchlings were hatched and released to sea from Nonsuch South Beach, in an effort to re-establish a breeding population in Bermuda. This project was ultimately unsuccessful, due to reasons that were not fully understood at the time.

In 1975 and 1992, two artificial ponds were excavated on Nonsuch to create wetland habitats, which were previously missing from the island. The freshwater pond was excavated in the center of the island and fitted with an impermeable liner to create a freshwater marsh habitat that continues to thrive and create a freshwater source for bird and invertebrate species. A sea-level saltwater pond was excavated and planted with Mangroves in the dune area behind the South Beach, but was damaged by hurricanes in 1995 and 1999, and then totally destroyed by major hurricanes in 2003 and 2010.

Between 1976 and 1978, 44 Yellow-crowned Night Herons were shipped from Tampa Bay in Florida to Bermuda in a collaborative project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. These were hand-reared on Nonsuch on land crabs and released into the wild. These began breeding here and elsewhere on Bermuda by 1980, eventually encouraging the Fish-eating Green Heron to naturally colonize Bermuda by 2002.

Top Shells and Portuguese Man-0-War in Nonsuch tide pool

In 1982, the re-introduction of the large intertidal West Indian Top Shell or "Whelk", which was wiped out on Bermuda after being collected as food by the early settlers, was carried out on Nonsuch Island, using 86 shells imported from the Turks and Caicos Islands by famed diver Teddy Tucker. This project was successful and the top shell started reproducing by 1986 on Nonsuch and has since recovered island-wide on Bermuda.

By 1990, the native forest planted by David Wingate matured enough to begin self-seeding; this forest has since developed into a closed-canopy, mature forest composed entirely of endemic and native tree and shrub species. Planting of shade-loving fern and shrub species that need the shelter and shade of a mature forest has continued until the present day.

In 2000, Dr, Wingate retired as Conservation Officer, with Jeremy Madeiros, who had worked with Wingate since 1984 as an apprentice and Parks Superintendent, becoming the new Conservation Officer by 2001. Madeiros travelled to Australia in 2001 to receive training for the handling and translocation of Petrels and numerous other seabird species. He has continued as the warden and manager of the Nonsuch Island project for the last 24 years.

From 2004 to 2008, in the first phase of the Bermuda Petrel Translocation Project initiated by Mr. Madeiros, 102 Cahow chicks were translocated from the 4 tiny original islets where the species had barely survived for almost 400 years, to artificial concrete nest burrows constructed on Nonsuch, where they were hand-fed on squid and anchovies and allowed to imprint upon and fledge from Nonsuch Island, so that they could return there to nest once they were mature. This project was successful and the first of the birds returned as adults to Nonsuch in 2008, with the first Nonsuch-born Cahow chick since the 1620s hatching in 2009. Almost 50% of all translocated chicks eventually returned as adults to Nonsuch and the original nesting islets, compared with an average of 33% of chicks that are naturally raised by adult Cahows that return.

Following a number of strong hurricane impacts, which destroyed hundreds of Tropicbird (Longtail) nest cavities on the Castle Harbour islands, over 100 artificial "Igloo" Tropicbird nests were installed on Nonsuch and 5 other Castle Harbour Islands between 2003 and 2012. These have helped to keep the number of Tropicbirds breeding in this area, which represents the largest number of breeding pairs of any single location in the greater North Atlantic area, from declining, and have contributed to this population actually increasing over the last 10 years. A survey of breeding success of over 300 Tropicbird nests was initiated by Madeiros in 2006, and continues to this day.

Jeremy in Cahow Translocation Colony “A” with an almost fully fledged Cahow chick

After the success of the first phase of the Cahow Translocation Project, a second translocation project was carried out at a second location on Nonsuch Island, with a total of 65 Cahow chicks translocated between 2013 and 2017 to artificial nest burrows at this new location. This second translocation has also proved to be successful, with the first birds returning and chicks produced by 2018. The number of Cahow breeding pairs at both Nonsuch nesting colonies reached 39 pairs in 2024, with 25 chicks being confirmed.

In 2010 the Nonsuch Expeditions team launched the CahowCam project which has contributed greatly to the management of the species. They continue to develop tools to solve conservation challenges with the latest, an AI-assisted rodent detection system, with support from the Nature Conservancy, that aims to give early warnings to a global rewilding problem. (see more below)

Another "Lazarus species" that was thought to be extinct by 1963, the endemic Greater Bermuda Land Snail (Pocilizonites bermudensis), was rediscovered in 2000 with small populations located in a couple of locations around Bermuda. These were the subject of a captive breeding program at Chester Zoo in the U. K., from which over 10,000 individuals were brought back to Bermuda and re-introduced to Nonsuch Island starting in 2014. This population began to successfully breed and has been monitored and censused ever since, with a survey conducted in 2023 by Dr. Kristiina Ovaska estimating a minimum of 150,000 now living on about one-third of Nonsuch's total area.

The endangered endemic Bermuda Skink also survives in good numbers on Nonsuch Island, with one of the largest populations still to be found in Bermuda. The confirmation in 2023 that Skink populations are increasing around the two Cahow colony sites strongly suggests a symbiotic relationship between the two species, (as filmed by the CahowCams) ,which is doubly important in light of the fact that the few remaining populations on the main Bermuda Islands are all in decline and may collapse in the near future, due to introduced predators such as feral cats and Kiskadee Flycatchers.

The Lesser Bermuda Land Snail (Pocilizonites circumfirmatus), another endemic species that, like its larger cousin became extinct in the wild by the early 2000s, was also the subject of a captive breeding program at Chester Zoo in the U. K., using some of the last individuals collected before the species disappeared. The first 800 young snails from this program were re-introduced to Nonsuch starting in 2020, with another 3000 snails released in 2022-23. Although breeding has not been confirmed on Nonsuch yet, the released adult snails have survived and there are plans to supplement this population with additional releases in the near future.

The Native and endemic forest cover of Nonsuch has now fully matured and the various tree and shrub species are reproducing well in the absence of invasive pest species such as rats and mice, which eat almost all seed produced by surviving native & endemic plants on the main islands. Annual baiting and trapping programs to prevent these pests (along with a new Ai rodent detection system see below), which can swim on rare occasions across from nearby Coopers Island from becoming established on Nonsuch and the other Castle Harbour Islands. Invasive trees, in particular the invasive Australian Casuarina tree, originally planted on these islands as a windbreak in the 1960s, have now been completely removed from Nonsuch as of 2020. Seed from other introduced pest plant species still are carried out to Nonsuch in the excreta of introduced pest bird species such as European Starlings and Kiskadees, and are removed by an ongoing annual culling program carried out by the Conservation Officer, with 6,000 to 15,000 seedlings removed every year.

Jeremy Madeiros, Senior Conservation Officer (Terrestrial Conservation) Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources BERMUDA 

The Nonsuch Expeditions was founded 20 years ago by Jean-Pierre Rouja in support of these ongoing efforts. Our mission is to participate in, support, and showcase the ongoing conservation and rewilding work taking place on Nonsuch Island, its surrounding waters, and the Sargasso Sea, whilst using Bermuda’s wide range of habitats (with Mangroves, Coral Reefs, Deep Ocean & the Sargasso Sea/High Seas, all within 30 min) as a field station for the development of conservation tech. Please Contact Us for more information.

These efforts include:

• Development and ongoing updating of this (www.nonsuchisland.com) website for education, global outreach, and engagement.

• Producing weekly film and blog updates throughout the 9-month nesting season for the past 15 years.

• The 2005 Higher Ground Educational Film documenting the original Translocation Process

• Designing and building the CahowCams (launched in 2010), from which over the past 13+ years 10’s of millions of minutes of video of the otherwise unknown underground Cahow nesting activities, have been watched by scientists, educators, and viewers from around the World (now in partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

• BioAcoustic reef soundscape and spawning aggregation studies with Cornell

• Shipwreck and Coral Reef photogrammetry with UCSD

• Studies of Sargasso Sea eco-systems as Ambassador to the Sargasso Sea Commission

• “Message in a Bottle” Ocean Plastic Tracking Project with Arribada

• “The Sound of Science” Bermuda Whale Song Project, with The Centre for Cetacean Research & Conservation, and Cornell University

• Development of a Sea Grass monitoring platform under a UK Darwin+ grant with Arribada

• Installation of an Ai rodent detection system using off-grid, wirelessly meshed camera traps and the cloud to recognize rodents when they first reach Nonsuch Island, with assistance from the Nature Conservancy.

• Tracking Bermuda Petrels on the High Seas as part of the Bermuda Petrel Biomonitoring Project with global partners

• Producing the first Reference Genome for the Cahow and follow-on population study with BioQuest powered by CariGenetics

• Ocean Technology Development with Station-B, MIT, Woods Hole, URI, UCSD, etc.

(4th) day in the life of a Cahow chick, video highlights - one of many Nonsuch Conservation Tech projects

See video highlights from the CahowCam1 burrow LiveStream where this year’s star chick continues to be well attended to by its parents. The clips in the video below were edited from the archival video from when it was 4 days old. (The cameras live stream video when internet access is available, while in parallel recording and archiving it locally for scientific purposes).

The Nonsuch Expeditions, founded and managed by ConservationTech Developer J-P Rouja, has been LiveStreaming from two of the man-made underground nesting burrows in Translocation Colony A from the world-renowned Nonsuch Island nature reserve in Bermuda for 10+ years. The platform uses custom-built cameras and military-grade 940nm IR lighting arrays, which, as Nonsuch Island is completely off-grid requires ongoing solar power and wireless internet to get the signal back to the Bermuda mainland. From there, it is uploaded to: the cloud, project partners the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and then on to YouTube etc., all of which has been designed and built to be as Hurricane resistant as possible.

For the past 7 years, through a partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology 10’s of millions of minutes of “CahowCam” LiveStreams, archival video replays, and regular nest check videos with the warden Jeremey Madeiros have been watched by scientists, students and the general public from around the World. These observations and lessons learned about the otherwise hidden and unknown lives of one of the rarest seabirds on the planet are contributing greatly to the recovery and conservation of the species and are a key component of the official management and recovery plan.

We leverage, and when required develop technologies to assist with Biodiversity Conservation and to solve conservation challenges, using Nonsuch Island, Bermuda’s wide range of marine habitats, and the Sargasso Sea as a field station and testing ground for conservation tech, with a wide range of global partners, whilst collaborating with and assisting the Bermuda Department of the Environment and Natural Resources.

This includes a recent Darwin+ grant for Sea Grass monitoring, The Bermuda Petrel Biomonitotiong Project, The Bermuda Whale Song Project, The Message in a Bottle Plastic Tracking Project, several passive acoustic projects with Cornell, a cloud-based AI-assisted rodent detection system with The Nature Conservancy, a coral reef photogrammetry project with UCSD, and most recently creating Reference Genomes of the Cahow and other keystone, signature Bermuda species with the new BioQuest NGO, of which JP is also the Director.

Please contact us if you would like more information, or to donate to support this critical work.